A Fledgling's Hard Lesson
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: Some lessons a fledgling Vampire just has to learn for himself. WARNING: WARPED, GORY HUMOR AHEAD!


Title: "A Fledgling's Hard Lesson"  
Author: Pirate Turner  
Rating: R for violence, death, and gore  
Warning: Serious gore and Warped Humor ahead; Also a hint of possible slash  
Summary: Some lessons a fledgling Vampire just has to learn for himself.  
Disclaimer: Spike/William, Angelus, Darla, Drusilla, and Angel are & TM their respective owners, not the author. The author makes absolutely no monetary profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

The air sang with the sounds of battle, and desire roared in his blood, beating a demanding rhythm inside him that was far more powerful than his human heartbeat had ever been. He whirled around, a flash of white, black, and crimson red, as he downed another pathetic mortal. The group of humans were falling before he and his family like flies, and indeed there was no more race, he reflected, that was more a pest than these sniveling, cowardly human beings.

The memory that he had once been one himself made him snarl, and his fangs closed down on yet another throat. He was getting quite full, but the blood tasted so good that he continuously wanted more, regardless of whether or not his appetite had been appeased. He snatched another on-rushing human by his throat and eyed him through eyes he'd heard them say was as black as his soul. Perhaps that was true, but what was also true was that he had never felt freer.

"Their blood tastes so good," he called to his family over the screams that played on his ears now as violins had once done just a few months before. "I wonder what their tiny brains are like?"

"You don't want to know," a strong voice answered him. Spike knew without looking that it belonged to his grandsire, Angelus, leader of their clan. His upper lip curled in a savage snarl that made the human faint in his arms. Angelus' mere comment was sufficient to tell the blonde Vampire that he did want to know.

A pale hand draped over his muscular, leather-clad shoulder, and his sire danced around him. "That's a good, pretty boy," she crooned, looking up at him through crazed eyes. "Go ahead: eat the human's brains!" Her slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Maybe you'll gain some intelligence!" She laughed and danced away into the battle, her fingernails slicing through the throats of two humans at once.

Spike looked after her through the span of a single heartbeat of a human, then shrugged his shoulders and tossed his head back in laughter. He loved every minute of this insanity! It thrived through him, feeding him even more efficiently than the blood! Still laughing, he clasped his latest prey's head between his hands and twisted, his fingernails digging in. The head cracked with the sound of a ripened melon breaking apart, and Spike let the body drop to the ground as he peered into the skull.

He prodded the bloody tissues with a blackened fingernail before finding what he thought had to be the brain. He poked it gingerly, making a disgusted face. "It looks like pudding!" he exclaimed. "Bloody awful, gray pudding, but still pudding!"

"I told you," came Angelus' voice, and Spike growled.

He whirled to look in the direction of his grandsire, then purposefully dug a fingernail into the gray substance. He licked it off with a slurping noise. As the taste hit his tongue, his stomach churned, but his pride swallowed his disgust. "Bloody fine pudding!" he announced with a toss of his head and growled again at Angelus' laughter.

As Spike devoured the brain, Angelus laughed and shook his head. "Some lessons," he announced to Darla who stood proudly beside him, "a Vampire just has to learn on his own!" He knew, all too well, for it hadn't been that long ago, by the way he now judged time, that he'd learned the very same lesson out of his determination to prove Darla wrong. "Go ahead, pup!" he called. "Slurp it up to the last drop!" He turned to wink at Darla. "Next thing you know, he'll be eating their entrails!" he joked as he lifted her up into his arms and swirled her around with blood from her last prey raining down upon them.

Spike continued to devour the brain, ignoring the sickening churns his stomach made and trying desperately to drown out Angelus' raucous laughter. He was the only thing wrong with this picture, he mused. What he wouldn't give to have him look at him in a way other than condescending, to have him not laugh at him just once, to have him on his knees, looking up at him, for a change! He grinned, his blood-tinted fangs shining in the moonlight. One night, he swore, one night, that was exactly how it would be!

**The End**


End file.
